The next day, early morning.
Ning Chen had the notices put up all over the city.
Then he sent for Yuan Long and the others, and they held a short meeting over breakfast.
Ning Chen and Pan Yucheng had at least gotten four or five hours’ sleep the night before.
Yuan Long and the rest had only snatched a few minutes with their eyes shut.
The men were worn out too.
“Report.”
Mu Anbang spoke first. “The city is more or less settled, but there are still scattered rebels out there and our men are hunting them.”
Yuan Long came straight in after him. “The prisoners have all been moved outside the city and our men are holding them… what’s to be done with them is for General Ning to decide.”
Ning Chen asked, “How many prisoners are there altogether?”
Yuan Long said, “We have the count. Eleven thousand three hundred and four.”
Ning Chen looked at Lei An. “Have the rebel dead been counted?”
Lei An said quickly, “They have. Six thousand nine hundred and thirty-three.”
Ning Chen frowned slightly. “So there are still just under two thousand rebels we haven’t found?”
They nodded.
“Those men have to be found. This is exactly the kind of loose end that has to be dealt with.”
“Yuan Long, I’ll trouble you with this one.”
Yuan Long nodded. “Yes!”
Ning Chen thought a moment and said, “Now our own losses.”
Lei An said, “The Changling Army has four hundred and seventy-three dead, over three hundred badly wounded, over a thousand lightly wounded.”
In a war there is no avoiding casualties.
By any reckoning this was a clean victory.
Yuan Long said, low and hard, “The firearms battalion has over fifty dead and better than a hundred wounded.”
Ning Chen was startled. “They had muskets. How did the casualties run that high? I told them over and over not to spare the ammunition, that nothing matters more than staying alive…”
Yuan Long said, “Of the fifty dead, most were killed on impact coming down off the cliff on the delta wings.”
Ning Chen said nothing.
The delta wings were unstable, and nobody had ever trained on one. Where a man came down was up to heaven, and whether he lived through it came down to whether his life was hard to take.
When Pan Yucheng had asked him, he had said it himself: this was gambling their lives.
But he had kept that from the men of the firearms battalion.
Because he had no choice. He had to take the gamble.
Ning Chen had known all along there would be casualties in a surprise attack by delta wing. He had not expected them to run this high.
He let out a long breath.
“Have the muskets been counted?”
Yuan Long said, “They have. Three are missing.”
Ning Chen frowned. “Do what you can to get them back.”
“Yes!”
Mu Anbang asked, “General Ning, what about those eleven thousand prisoners?”
Ning Chen thought it over. “We’re short of hands ourselves. Give them a chance to earn their way out of the charge.”
“Break them up and put them into our own units… two of our soldiers watching one of theirs. If they behave, they stay. If they don’t, execute them then and there.”
“Tell those rebels that whether they live depends on how they conduct themselves… and if they don’t behave, the entire household to the sword.”
Mu Anbang nodded. “Yes!”
“Marshal Mu, put some real effort into this one… drilling men is your strong suit. See if you can make these people useful to us.”
“Rest easy, General Ning, leave it to me!”
Ning Chen looked at Lei An. “You’ll help Marshal Mu. Keep an eye on those men at all times… and when the moment comes to act, don’t be soft.”
“This officer obeys!”
Ning Chen looked at Feng Qizheng, who had his head down and was eating hard, and said, smiling, “Old Feng, how are you doing with the search and seizure of the officials’ houses?”
Feng Qizheng shook his head. “There are too many of them, I’m not finished… I’ll get back to it after breakfast. I’ll try to have it done before dark.”
Ning Chen made a sound of acknowledgment and said, “Everything seized has to be entered in a book, and the moment you’re finished bring it all to me… it goes to the state, all of it. No sloppiness.”
“Right!”
Ning Chen said, “One more thing. The men have had no rest lately… if you don’t need all of them, let them take turns resting.”
“Half our strength in the city is enough. Pull the rest out and camp them outside the south gate. Don’t disturb the people.”
They nodded.
After breakfast they all went off to their work.
Ning Chen rode to the Mei residence alone.
Zhang Youcai heard Ning Chen had come and came trotting over looking very pleased with himself.
“Reporting to General Ning!”
Ning Chen gave him a nod and asked, smiling, “Nothing has happened?”
Zhang Youcai said, “Reporting to General Ning, the maids and servants of the house have been sent away. Nothing else.”
Ning Chen made a sound of acknowledgment. “Go see to your work. I’ll walk around by myself.”
“Yes!”
Ning Chen strolled about on his own and came to the back garden.
There were men of the musket battalion on guard in the back garden too.
“All of you can go. Without an order from me nobody is to come and disturb me… and leave me two muskets, and a torch.”
“Yes!”
The musket battalion soldiers left the muskets and the torch and withdrew.
Ning Chen looked the muskets over, then turned and went straight for the rockery.
Looking at them carefully, he could see the rockeries really were different colors.
He found the gold-colored one.
He went once around it and finally spotted the crescent-shaped stone.
Ning Chen stepped up and pressed it, and the crescent-shaped stone sank in.
There was a heavy grinding sound… and a hidden door appeared in the rockery behind him.
Ning Chen blew a fire striker alight, lit the torch, leveled a musket and went carefully in.
Behind the hidden door was a passage, and a fairly wide one.
The passage ran downward.
Ning Chen did not go blundering ahead. He took the rope he had already made ready at his waist, tied a stone to one end, threw the weighted end out in front of him and then shook the rope.
He was afraid there might be a trap in this passage, or hidden weapons.
Only when he was sure it was safe did Ning Chen move carefully forward.
As he went he prodded the flagstones with the barrel of the musket… his fear being that he would put a foot down, the stone would drop, and arrows would come out of the walls on either side.
Ning Chen tested his way the whole distance and went very slowly.
After a stretch there was light ahead.
The oil lamps in the wall were still burning.
These were what are called eternal lamps.
An eternal lamp is double-walled. The inner vessel holds the lamp oil, which is really beeswax. The outer one holds water, which keeps the beeswax firm so that it burns slowly. And the wick has been soaked in vinegar, so it burns at a low heat… which is how an eternal lamp can burn for a very long time.
Ning Chen went carefully.
Every stretch or so, besides testing the way with the rope, he stopped and studied the walls on both sides and the vault overhead. Any hole in them might be a hidden weapon.
It took him a full two hours to reach a stone door.
He was worn out and running with sweat, and although he had not met a single trap he did not think the time wasted… there is never anything wrong with being careful.
He went up and tried it. The stone door would not open, so there was a mechanism.
He studied everything around him, looking for the trigger.
Then his eye fixed on an oil lamp beside him… the flame on this lamp was far brighter than the flames on the others.
Looking closer, this lamp was also cleaner than the rest, with hardly any dust on it, which meant somebody handled it often.
“And you thought that would get past my fiery golden eyes?” (TL Note: The Monkey King’s eyes, hardened in a furnace, which could see through any disguise. Ning Chen is congratulating himself.)
Ning Chen was feeling smug at once.
He took hold of the lamp and tried it, and with a click the lamp turned half a circle.
The instant the click sounded, Ning Chen shot off like a rabbit and put a long way between himself and the door.
Not because there was a trap. Because he was afraid there was one.
Ning Chen hid behind a pillar some distance back. There were a number of pillars along the passage holding up the vault, to keep it from coming down.
He stayed behind the pillar for a good while before he put his head out to look… and then made a small puzzled sound. Why was there no reaction at all? The stone door had not opened either.
(End of Chapter 251)